Professor Nina Parish

Professor in French & Francophone

Literature and Languages - Division Stirling

Professor Nina Parish

Contact details

About me

I joined the University of Stirling as Professor of French and Francophone Studies in July 2019 and am currently Head of the Division of Literature & Languages.

I research representations of difficult history, the migrant experience and multilingualism in the museum space. I was part of the DisTerrMem team, working on an EU-funded Horizon 2020 project based at the University of Bath where I’m a visiting researcher. This project examines the management of competing, often highly antagonistic, memories of disputed territories across borders focusing on the case studies of Armenia, Pakistan, Poland and Lithuania. (https://www.disterrmem.eu). From 2019 to 2022, I worked with Prof Daniele Rugo (Brunel University) on the Memories from the Margins project, funded by the British Academy GCRF Heritage, Dignity and Violence Programme, which looked at unofficial memories of the civil war in Lebanon and the war in Syria (https://www.memoriesmargins.com). One of the outputs of this project was a documentary film, The Soil and the Sea (https://www.soilandseafilm.com). Between 2016 and 2019 I was part of the EU-funded Horizon 2020 UNREST team working on innovative memory practices in sites of trauma including war museums and mass graves (www.unrest.eu).

I am also an expert on the interaction between text and image in the field of modern and contemporary French Studies. I have published widely on this subject, in particular, on the poet and visual artist, Henri Michaux. From 2012 to 2016, with Dr Emma Wagstaff (University of Birmingham), I co-organised an international research network, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, on interdisciplinary connections in contemporary French poetic practice (https://frenchpoetryand.wordpress.com/).

I have taught across all years of our undergraduate programme in French at Stirling and act as module coordinator for FREU9H5 French Honours/General Language: Composition. I have also contributed to the MSc in Heritage and to the MLitt in Creative Writing. I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Representing difficult history, the migrant experience and multilingualism in the museum space; memory studies

Twentieth and twenty-first-century French and Francophone literature and the visual arts and in particular modernism, the avant-gardes, modern and contemporary poetic practice and the artists book

Interdisciplinary studies, with a special emphasis on text and image

Event / Presentation

Diasporic Memory Practice on the Internet: Remembering Lost Homelands
Invited paper at the Centre for Cultural Identity and Memory Studies Institute, University of St Andrews (November 2022) Also presented as ‘Diaspora Memories and the Virtual Museum: Remembering Lost Homelands’, with David Clarke, accepted paper at Memory Studies Association Conference, ‘Convergences’, University of Warsaw (online) (July 2021); Invited paper at Modern Languages research seminar, Kings College London (October 2021); Invited paper at Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies research seminar, University of Bath (February 2022)

Editing bilingual poetry anthologies in the twenty-first century
Co-authored invited paper with Emma Wagstaff, (Centre for Poetic Innovation, University of St Andrews, October 2020; Redazione Polisemie, Sapienza University of Rome, February 2021)

From DisTerrMem to Memories from the Margins: The challenges of understanding memory work in different locations
Invited talk at NIKU, Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, Oslo (May 2024)

Memory Books: Mapping Peaceful Coexistence of Communities and the Disappearance of Diaspora in Armenia
Accepted co-authored paper with David Clarke, Memory Studies Association Conference, University of Prague (July 2025)

Past Imperfect: Editing and Teaching Memory Studies
Accepted co-authored paper with Hannah Grayson, Memory Studies Association Conference, University of Newcastle (July 2023)

Performance and Peacebuilding, between Consensus and Agonism: The Sejny Chronicles and Moush, Sweet Moush
Accepted co-authored paper with David Clarke and Weronika Czyżewska-Poncyljusz, DisTerrMem final conference, University of Kaunas, Lithuania/Borderland Foundation, Sejny, Poland (September 2023)

Performing Agonism: The Sejny Chronicles and Moush, Sweet Moush
Invited paper at the Modern Languages research seminar, Queens University Belfast (March 2024)

Translating contemporary French poetry and editing bilingual poetry anthologies in the twenty-first century
Keynote lecture, ‘New Horizons in Language Teaching and Translation: innovations, Technologies, and Challenges’, Beijing International Studies University, China (October 2024)

UNREST and agonistic memory
Invited paper at Aberdeen Modern Languages research seminar (March 2021)

Working with museums for impact case studies
Accepted paper for Society for French Studies Annual Conference, University of Newcastle (June 2023)

External Examiners and Validations

External Examiner for MA in Visual Cultures, University of Durham (current)

External Examiner for UG French for Universities of Cambridge (current); Aberdeen (2020-2024); Canterbury Christ Church (2015-2021); Nottingham Trent (2016-2020)

External reviewer for Department of Humanities Learning & Teaching review, University of Strathclyde (March 2024)

MPhil externalling: University of Glasgow (2021)

PhD externalling: Universities of Wollongong (2014); Newcastle (2020); Leicester (2022); Paris Nanterre (2023)

Other Project

‘Modern French Thought and Poetry’, French Department Studentship, Royal Holloway University of London

Arts and Humanities Research Board PhD Scholarship

Including Study Trip award

Erasmus Mundus Award: Staff exchange with the University of Sydney
University of Sydney

For more information, see: http://www.bath.ac.uk/polis/research/projects/suitcases-boats-bridges-migrant-stories-australian-museums/

University of Bath, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Teaching Development Fund, ‘From Scrapbooks to Death Masks: Stepping into the University’s Archives & Research Collections’
University of Bath

EU Horizon 2020 - UNREST (Unsettling Remembering and Social Cohesion in Transnational Europe)

See project website for more information: www.unrest.eu

EU Horizon 2020 - MSCA RISE Memory Across Borders: Dealing with the Legacy of Disputed Territories

See project website for more information: www.disterrmem.eu Able to participate thanks to visiting researcher status at the University of Bath.

British Academy Overseas Conference Grant

University of Bath International Researcher Mobility Scheme
For more information, see: http://www.bath.ac.uk/polis/research/projects/suitcases-boats-bridges-migrant-stories-australian-museums/

Research programmes

Research themes